Quickly Copy a File or Folder Path to the Clipboard in Mac OS X

There are a few ways to retrieve a file or folders full path from Mac OS X, and we’ll cover the two easiest methods here, and also a third option that utilizes a Service to instantly copy any path to the clipboard. First, we’ll use the Get Info panel to pull any items complete path, and then we’ll use another trick that utilizes an under appreciated feature of the Terminal to retrieve any directory or files path. The optional Automator Service provides yet another option to copy file and folder paths, which is then quickly accessible through the right-click menu from the OS X Finder.

Just to clarify, we are looking to copy the path to a file or folder to the clipboard so that it can be pasted elsewhere. This is different from showing the path, which can be made visible in any Finder window through an optional window bar or even in the title bar using a defaults trick.

Let’s get to copying complete paths so that you can use them elsewhere.

Copy a File / Directory Path from the OS X Get Info Window

Perhaps the easiest and most user friendly method, you can easily retrieve any file or folders path from the Get Info window by doing the following:

Select the file or folder in the OS X Finder, then hit Command+i to summon Get Info

Click and drag alongside “Where” to select the path, then hit Command+C to copy the full path to the clipboard

Get Info can also be accessed by the control-click and right-click menus. For most use cases and for occasional complete path access, the Get Info trick is simple, fast, efficient, and should fit the bill for most people.

Print Path through the Mac Terminal

Launch Terminal then drag and drop any item from the Finder into the Terminal window to instantly print the full path

Select and highlight the path to copy it to the clipboard as usual

This trick is great if you are looking to use the path in the Terminal, otherwise it may not be as easy as the Get Info tip because it requires opening another app.

Create a “Copy Path” Service for the Right-Click Menu

If you find yourself frequently needing to copy and paste file and folder paths, creating an Automator Service will make your life easier because the service then becomes accessible from the OS X Right-Click contextual menu, accessible from anywhere in the Finder. This is an excellent trick from CNet and is very easy to set up yourself:

Launch Automator and create a new “Service”

Use the search function to look for “Copy to Clipboard” and drag that into the rightside panel of the Service

Set ‘Service recieves selected’ to “files or folders” and ‘in’ to “Finder” as shown in the screen shot below

Save the Service with a name like “Copy Path”

Now go anywhere in the Finder, select anything in the filesystem be it a directory or a file, then right-click to reveal the “Copy Path” service item as created.

Choosing that option will instantly copy the chosen items path to the clipboard, which you can then paste elsewhere.

What is a path anyway?

For the unfamiliar, you can think of an items path as it’s address in the file system, pointing to exactly where it resides on the computer. For example, a file named “Testfile.txt” that resides on your user account desktop would have a complete path that would resemble something like this:

/Users/USERNAME/Desktop/Testfile.txt

For items in the user directories, you can user a tilde to shorthand the path like so:

~/Desktop/Testfile.txt

That shorthand does not work with system files, or for accessing other user files, thus a complete path would be needed. All of the methods we’re sharing will access and copy the complete path, not the short hand, even if the file or directory in question is in the user folders.

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Actually, I solved this myself! If you have more than 5 services, it will nest under the Services subfolder. Go to your system preferences – Keyboard – Keyboard Shortcuts. Click Services on the left, then unchceck anything you don’t use from that Services menu. If you get it under 5 items, they will appear without the context menu.

If you have Office for Mac (2011), all you have to do is copy (command C) a file in finder and you can paste a clickable link into Microsoft software. Why it’s MS software only, I don’t get but it works beautifully.

It nearly works as expected, but after copying, the file path ends up in the clipboard with colons as path separator, instead of slashes. AFIK, colon path separator had been in use in the old Mac operating systems, before they “went BSD”.

I always used the Get Info window to get folder/file path. After MAC OS X 10.10 the path components separated by arrows and no longer possible to copy the full path, also it was showing only the parent path.
I like the Service option easy to access and copies the full path.
Thank you.

In order for it to be a “link” that when clicked on it will jump to that file, it needs the following: file:///volume/smith/ . . . etc. How can we get that “file://” to start the path name? Also, if there is a space in the file name, then we need the %20 in between the words. How does that get added?
Thanks, David

David (comment from 20141216) you might try making another automator workflow that pastes the file:///volume/smith text and then calls the copy file folder path workflow or just calls something that pastes whatever is on the clipboard (wherever you used this workflow to copy there). I haven’t tried it.

As far as adding the space characters instead of %20s, wherever you want to paste put down two “” and arrow once left so you’re between the double-quotes and then paste the copied path. “/Users/Shared/Library/Services/Copy File Name&Path to Clipboard.workflow” Hey, that worked. I’m not sure how well the ampersand between Name and Path will make it to this posting.

Windoze, at least in W7 and maybe XP (I just don’t recall) has shift-right-click a file and Copy as Path is right there and automatically puts the double quotes around the full path. No coding needed.

It just requires adding one additional step to the Automator workflow described above. Make the first item in the workflow be “Run Applescript”, and in the box where you edit the Applescript to run, put:

on run {filepath}

set PosixPath to POSIX path of filepath as text
set theOutput to “file://” & PosixPath

return theOutput
end run

Then connect the output of that section to the same “Copy to Clipboard” action you were using before, and you’re done.

Has anyone come up with a workaround for this? Ive just bought a Macbook pro, my previous laptop was windows PC which allowed me to copy and paste links to folders into evernote. I need to do this with Finder / dropbox folders.